Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I)ECSA 2022

Call for Papers

It has been widely demonstrated that diversity in gender, culture, religion, country, etc. is a key factor to have success and be competitive and innovative in software development. Setting up diverse teams in ICT organizations, including companies, universities, and research centers, is necessary, but still hard to realize in practice, even if all recognize the importance of promoting equal opportunities and inclusion for the success of projects. This challenge is particularly important in the context of software architecture, which requires intensive interactions in the development teams, and communication with other teams and stakeholders.

In this scenario, following the success of the past editions, the 7th special track on “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I)” (previously Gender Diversity in Software Architecture & Software Engineering) is part of the 16th premier European Conference on Software Architecture (ECSA 2022). DE&I will provide a forum for discussions about how to achieve more diversity and promote equity and inclusion in software architecture research and practice.

Any people regardless of their gender, culture, etc., are invited to collaborate submitting their work and attending to this track. Students, industry professionals, academics, and others with an interest in software architecture are very welcome to promote networking and technical discussion to motivate the participation and visibility of every individual, regardless of their background.

Topics of interest are listed as follows but not limited to:

• Diversity, equity, and inclusion in activities related to software architecture, e.g., in software architecture teams in specific countries with their particular culture
• Diversity, equity, and inclusion in the software architecture research community, e.g., reviewing process (single-blind vs double-blind), attendance to physical or virtual conferences for countries or institutions
• Diversity, equity, and inclusion in global software architecture teams working in academia or industry
• Empirical studies (e.g., experiments, surveys, mining software repositories) to understand how individuals perceive diversity, equity, and inclusion in activities related to software architecture
• Empirical studies to understand the impact of diversity, equity, and inclusion in activities related to software architecture
• Experience reports of initiatives to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in activities related to software architecture
• Experience reports of initiatives to promote the visibility of women in the software architecture field

There will be a mix of presentations and a panel to discuss current and future issues in the field by leading experts from industry and academia. ECSA 2022 is planned as a hybrid event (with the option to go fully online if required). The track will be organized to be adequate to this format.

Submissions

Paper submissions must be made electronically via the online EasyChair submission site for the ECSA 2022 conference https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ecsa2022 selecting the DE&I track.

We seek contributions as summaries, preliminary results from work-in-progress, discussion of challenges, position papers, experience reports, or studies; all regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion in Software Architecture and Software Engineering, and more generally in STEM, both in industry and academia.

All submissions must conform to the LNCS template (https://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-guidelines) and must not exceed 8 pages + 2 pages only for references.

All contributions will undergo a peer-review process, being reviewed by at least three reviewers. The evaluation criteria for submissions will be whether they contribute ideas or results to the challenge of achieving more diversity in the field of software architecture and whether the argumentation and/or study are sound.

Proceedings

ECSA 2022 will use a two-step process. Online proceedings (available before the start of the conference) will include accepted papers to the companion proceedings and will be published online on the ECSA 2022 web page (i.e. no formal proceedings). The accepted papers will be accessible only by the ECSA 2022 workshop participants. After the conference, all accepted papers will be invited to be extended to at least 12 and maximum 16 pages to be included in the ECSA 2022 companion volume to be published at LNCS post-proceedings (https://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs). For the post-proceedings, the papers will undergo a minor revision cycle where the extensions will be checked by the reviewers. Paper registration is required, allowing the inclusion of the paper in the proceedings. At least one author must present the paper during the conference.

Important Dates

• Paper submission: July 1st, 2022 July 13th, 2022
• Author notification: July 29th, 2022
• Camera-ready version: August 5th, 2022

Note: All deadlines are 23:59 AoE (Anywhere on Earth)

Organizers

• Paolo Arcaini, National Institute of Informatics, Japan
• Elisa Yumi Nakagawa, University of São Paulo, Brazil